11 Things You Need to Immediately Stop Doing on Facebook

facebook stop sign

dislike-button-stop-signAre you getting tired of Facebook or some of the behavior of your friends on the site? Facebook is the most popular social network with over 1 billion active users. And with great popularity comes some shameful characters looking to tap into Facebook’s viral market to sell you their crappy products or scheme your money through affiliate links or worse.

So if you happen to find yourself doing any of the 11 following things, you should look to stop doing so immediately before all of your friends look to jump ship!

 

1. Tagging Random People in Photos

Please stop tagging people you barely know in photos that have nothing to do with them. It’s one thing when your buddy tags you in an unphotogenic pic, then sends it out to friends for some laughs, because, hey, at least it’s you. But the people I’m talking about upload photos and tag as many people as they can to try and gin up as many likes as possible. This is a classic move by spammers so be cautious of anyone who does this. I’ve had to call out several individuals over the years, even friends for their random tagging, and you should do the same in any suspect post. Sending a personal message to them to stop could work, too, but I feel like if some goofball wants to tag me in every one of his posts, he must be looking for my input so I give it to him publicly right then and there. Yes, revenge is a dish best served cold…

 

2. Cross-Posting From Twitter

Look, I understand you’re a little short on content and things to say. We all basically post the same stuff on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. but at least have the decency to not automatically send your Twitter tweets to Facebook. For one, you’ll get much less engagement posting to Facebook via any third-party app let alone Twitter which basically disregards Facebook etiquette. If you do this, it’s a clear sign you’re not really engaged on Facebook or maybe just too lazy to post yourself, either way a fail.
facebook fail

 

3. Liking Your Own Posts

So you’ve just posted the cutest cat or baby picture ever. That’s cool, I guess. But then you go ahead and like your photo too. Well, I know you already like the post, aren’t you the one who just shared the damn thing? Besides being annoyingly repetitive, the real reason people feel the need to do this is that the action of liking the post will again show up in the streaming news ticker, giving the post even more exposure (it’s potentially seen twice). These are typically the moves of self-proclaimed “social media gurus” or people who just feel insecure about their status posts.

 

4. New Page Invites

Look, I understand you need to create a page for your business, but please stop inviting me to your half-ass Facebook pages. Instead post interesting content to your own page, share it on your profile as well (so your friends see it), and if people find it interesting they will follow. It’s almost not your fault, as creating a page and inviting all your friends can be tempting, but most of your friends won’t like your page and maybe they won’t like you anymore either. And the ones who do like it would’ve probably found it anyways without your begging them to do so. So like the funny Oatmeal comic, don’t do this…

facebook messages

what you really sound like on Facebook

 

5. App Requests

If you’re on Facebook all day playing Farmville, that should be embarrassing enough, and the last thing you should ever want to do is invite your friends and alert them to your nerdiness. And I can’t even explain to you the ill feeling I get when I receive a request to join Klout, for example, even though I’ve already registered, from one of my less intelligent friends.

 

6. Suggesting Friends

Please stop suggesting I friend somebody else. You playing match-maker is a little creepy and I might start to question why you and I are friends instead. And it’s actually worse than creepy because, you see, on Facebook expert spammers pair up and start suggesting up to 50 random friends for each other. By doing this, the people they suggest will get the notification (in their friend requests) and may mistakenly think the spammers requested the friendship. In reality, the spammers want you to commit the first step by adding them as friends (essentially tricking you to friend request them). Facebook penalizes people for requesting too many friends, but spammers who pair up and suggest friends for each other escape notice since they are not actually doing the requesting.

 

7. Adding People to Random Groups

This one’s a big pet peeve of mine. A classic text-book spam artist move, people will add you to random groups without your knowledge and all of a sudden you’re signed up for every single notification for each posts to the group. If this happens to you, make sure to leave the group or at least turn off the notifications within the group settings, as well as question the friendship with the culprit who added you. You don’t want to be the person known for doing this on Facebook, it’s a huge red flag.

 

8. Off-base and Mass Messages

Stop sending mass messages with dozens of people attached. You’ve seen these before, like “please like my page” or “vote for me in this ridiculous award I can’t win,” etc. People loathe being addressed in this style, and if you really have something to say at the very least personalize your message to each individual or, better yet, refrain altogether from sending out mass messages. After all, it’s straight out of the guide to spamming.

please vote

what really happens on Facebook

 

9. The Ridiculous Event Invite

I’m honored you want me to come to your poetry reading in Siberia, but I’m not quite sure I’ll be able to make it. When you send mass requests to a bunch of people you don’t really know, it makes you seem inconsiderate and pretty much paints you as a spammer.

 

10. Overdone Like Buttons

Somehow I’ve ventured over to your blog only to be greeted by an alarming pop-up Facebook “like” box baiting me to like your page. And then, when that goes away, I can barely even see your blog post because of the 100 “like” buttons strategically placed throughout your site.
too many like buttons

 

11. Poking People

Always sort of a joke, it might be time to finally retire this Facebook feature. Something just feels off every time you poke me. No matter how you cut it, there isn’t a single situation in which poking someone is acceptable.

 

poke me again i dare you

 

If you are one of the millions of people committing these crimes on a daily basis, please refrain from doing so at once! You know who you are. I promise you whatever you’re trying to sell or market will have a much better chance if you come up with some honest hard-working tactics like creating or curating interesting and relevant content as opposed to relative social media douchebaggery.

get more likes

you wouldn't do this in the real world

create awesome things

It’s that simple folks, avoid these 11 things and one day you can go from a spam-bot back to being my friend! Does anything else annoy you about Facebook?
 
Comics via The Oatmeal, Facebook stop sign by Steve Lovelace

Daniel Zeevi

By Daniel Zeevi

Daniel is a social network architect, web developer, infographic designer, writer, speaker and founder of DashBurst. Full-time futurist and part-time content curator, always on the hunt for disruptive new technology, creative art and web humor.

63 comments

  1. Really amazing piece of information and must to read for people those who are serious about facebook promotions and want to make their fanpage stand out of crowd. A combination of useful resources in any niche will help gain quality likes and way far better when it comes to convert those likes.

  2. I’m also getting tired of the cute/handicapped kid photos with the “send me one million likes if you think my dad should get me a puppy -or- send me one million likes if think I should be cured” kinda stuff.

    1. Well it’s not pulling all the material from the Oatmeal, in fact, the whole article is original using some comic images with proper attribution, aka how sharing should be done on the web. I’ve overheard Matt talking about this in an interview after the whole bear love affair where that site used all of his comics without any attribution ever and then had the audacity to sue him over his complaints. But Matt mentioned the proper etiquette for sharing one of his comics vs. what they were doing. See the difference?

    2. So if I copied the entire body of this article to my own website, added one paragraph at the beginning that said: “Hey, check out some of these great tips!” and added a small link back to this post, you would have no problem with that?

    3. When I spend the whole read glancing back up to the address bar, thinking “No, this _isn’t_ The Oatmeal…which is odd because I’m sure these are his comics”, you’re not doing it as right as you think you are.

  3. Funny post, and I’m guilty of many of them.. I still love to Poke people.. I find enormous irony in your #10 point seeing as the first thing I thought when I came to this site was you have overkilled it with share buttons! Way too distracting.

    1. It’s a fair point Scott it might be more social buttons than I would like too, but after some thorough testing we’re getting way more sharing traction with each button than without. It has to be a careful balance…

  4. This sounds like its all about you. Well, its not. The world does not revolve around Daniel Z and what he likes. I have the simplest solution ever. Leave facebook if its so annoying. You have 300 + people all posting on your page and you are bound to be annoyed by something. Grow up, deal with it. That’s life in the big city.

    1. There’s also “Don’t turn into a self-righteous, ultimatum-issuing cunt because someone doesn’t like the things you like.”

    2. I told him the same thing, Joaann, I cannot believe this guy. A horrible horrible example of journalist or professionalism, where does he get off? One person’s spam is another person’s cry for help… How does he account for the flood survivor posting over and over repeatedly spamming: “HELP MY TWINS AND I ARE STUCK ON ROOF, WE ARE GOING TO DROWN DIAL 911” This isn’t spam is it? Nobody has the definition of spam, because it’s an expression dreamed up by losers, whiners and censors in denial.

    3. Michal Jan Antoni Woźnicki That’s hilarious. One of the smartest comments on this entire article, and not only can you not refute its biting sarcasm with any actual content, you use society’s oh-no-you-didn’t word of the day, so you piss EVERYONE off at once. Ladies and gentlemen – the troll handbook at work.

  5. Ha ha, it is very funny. I just recently discovered (Y) so the thumbs up is my new thing…I didn’t realize it is annoying…will keep it minimal…very likeable page…yes, I’m pressing like for this one… 🙂 and adding a happy face because it’s made my day…

  6. Dan, You missed the single largest “DON’T DO” on Facebook EVER…………
    STOP POSTING PICTURES OF YOUR FOOD! lol, good job + info.

  7. Honestly, it drives me nuts when people share so many things, from so many other sites, that it takes up my entire feed page and I’m not talking about singular shares of what they are interested in, I’m talking about back to back posts of things that most people could care less about. I have actually blocked peoples posts from my feed, for doing this repetitively.

  8. Wow, someone is RIGHT on the internet! I would suggest one more, and it’s a very important one: Don’t post issue-based forwards without at least checking them for veracity. ‘Nuff said.

    1. Good. I don’t do any of those things. And I like to bedazzle the various profiling with all sorts of information, like my great admiration for Sen. Ted Cruz.

  9. Excellent post! I totally agree with your list! Lately I’ve been fining the “posts you might like” ads in my newsfeed VERY ANNOYING. I don’t mid the ads along the side of the page, some of them are relevant to me and I even click on them, but in my newsfeed is intrusive. I mark them as spam hoping FB will get the idea!

  10. Wow! Great blog! I have to say that I am guilty of asking people to like my artist page…after all, this is the main reason I joined Facebook, so every now & then I post a link to my artist page asking people to support indie artist. I also create events sometimes but I only invite relevant people from that area whom I know or at least I know are interested because they have asked me to let them know the next time I’m singing somewhere! Facebook is an interesting place! You forgot to mention posting anti-political stuff. Political posts attacking the other side….I think it’s politically incorrect! LOL! 🙂 by the way, can you please like my artist page?? haha!

  11. Stop posting a long message and then saying if I want to stay your friend, I MUST copy and paste this to my page and send it to all my friends, or else you will KNOW that I’m not your friend.

  12. How about this DON”T “like” a painful situation? It feels like the person didn’t even read the post. i.e. “I am really sad today because Zippy my dog died last night” “10 LIKES”. WTH?

  13. haha, people are using facebook’s features, oh no, time to write a whiney blog about it. Hey you know you can stop all the stuff you hate pretty easily, maybe instead of posting something egocentric on your blog, you should google “how to stop (Fb feature I hate) from showing up on my wall/feed/links” and then write a how to blog with your findings…..infact you could “Borrow” some of the ones out there already, you seem to be good at that.

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